Theatre Hullabaloo, the children’s arts charity based in The Hullabaloo on Borough Road, Darlington have created baby play packs for families and babies born during lockdown across parts of Tees Valley to play together and have some creative fun.
Theatre Hullabaloo, the children’s arts charity based in The Hullabaloo on Borough Road, Darlington have created baby play packs for families and babies born during lockdown across parts of Tees Valley to play together and have some creative fun.
1500 free Hullabaloo Baby Play Packs aimed at babies 12 months and under have been created to date by Theatre Hullabaloo with support from Darlington Borough Council, Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council, Middlesbrough Council and Public Health South Tees. These packs will be distributed throughout parts of the Tees Valley area and if successful Theatre Hullabaloo hopes to secure further funding to distribute the packs further afield on a national basis.
Miranda Thain, CEO at Theatre Hullabaloo says “We have really missed meeting the new babies who would usually be visiting us to play at our venue, The Hullabaloo, in Darlington. The COVID-19 restrictions mean that it’s been really challenging for those parents and carers to attend any baby groups and classes and we hope that these Hullabaloo Baby Play Packs will bring some of the creative magic that families experience at The Hullabaloo into their homes.
As well as featuring a mixture of creative toys and props, the play packs also contain a Playbook packed with ideas for how to play creatively with your baby. Short videos available from Theatre Hullabaloo’s website have been filmed by some of the artists who work regularly with Theatre Hullabaloo and give creative ideas on how to use each of the items in the pack.
Miranda added “Play really is the work of babies as they are busy learning about the world, developing new skills every day. We hope these packs will mean that parents and carers will feel more confident about the how and why of play and we look forward to welcoming these lockdown babies to play at The Hullabaloo when it’s safe to do so again”
Click here to find out more about the Hullabaloo baby play packs
In Darlington Baby Play Packs are being distributed by Health Visitors to families with babies born from March – December 2020 at their next pre-arranged appointment.
Staff from Redcar and Cleveland’s Family Hub Service and Middlesbrough’s School Readiness Team are in the process of contacting parents to introduce the Hullabaloo Baby Play Packs and offer them to parents and carers of all babies born April to June 2020.
As we have limited capacity, we are specifically targeting families with babies born since lockdown. We are hoping to secure further funding to roll out more packs as we know older babies have missed out on important play time during this period too, but currently we only have a limited number of packs to distribute so these will only be available to eligible families with babies born during specific periods.